self-worth

hope.

/ lindsay / 1 Comment

Even though my husband is actually the one who gets paid to do youth ministry, I actually teach a middle school discipleship class at our church on Wednesday nights. That’s right; one other brave volunteer and I face off against upwards of 20 middle schoolers each week by choice and I happen to love every minute of it.

Well, if I’m being honest, every minute of it that I’m not scolding them for doing weird things like drawing on each other’s faces.

Last night our lesson was on grace (specifically, how God will always love you no matter how many faces you draw on). To start out the class I had the students write down all the things they like about themselves and then share them with us (the point being that once you are in Christ, God only sees the good in you and not the bad). One little girl’s answer really struck me.

“I love that I’m really good at the cello,” she started, “and I love that I’m so pretty. Like, I’m really pretty. And I love that.”

Now, if I were to stand up in front of a group of my peers and say that, I might get smacked. But I love that she so boldly stated that for three reasons:

  1. She stated it as if it was a total inarguable fact (and, if I could weigh in, it absolutely is).
  2. She wasn’t ashamed or bashful about this.
  3. In a world where the vast majority of teenage girls today say the exact opposite about themselves every day, how refreshing!

Today when I went grocery shopping, I had so many people stop and tell me about how beautiful my baby is (isn’t he though?) and the whole time I just kept thinking about that girl in my class, and praying that my son never doubts his unique beauty or his worth in this world, despite all the things society may tell him.

And so, today (and yesterday) I’m grateful for the hope in a future where kids/teenagers/adults/people rise above a society built on self-esteem crushing lies.

overcome the lie.

/ lindsay / 1 Comment

A quick Google search tells me that the average person can see up to 5,000 advertisements a day. That’s a little more than 208 an hour.

Whoa.

That may seem unrealistic at first, but if you think about it, it makes sense.

In the morning, your alarm clock rouses you. You get up, take a shower, and get dressed. Already, you’ve seen the brand names of all your shampoos, body washes, and clothes you wear. While these products aren’t currently trying to sell themselves to you, you’ve already bought them. Your brand loyalty is being cultivated.

Then, you get into your car and drive to work. On your way, you pass billboards, signs, and placards all vying for your valuable consumer eye. Then you get to work, sit down at your cubicle, and open up your Internet browser to check your email. The page you’re blankly staring at recycles a handful of ads based on your past web experience.

At the end of the day, you get in your car and go back home and plop down on the couch to relax.  You flip on the television and scroll through channels while flickering ads quietly trigger the firing off of millions of synapses in your brain. You consume an hour or two (maybe) and then hit the hay, all to wake up the next day and start it all over again.

If the average person sees that many ads a day, how many lies do you think the average person is told a day?

Now, I’m a communication major. I have a lot of friends who, after graduating college with me, went off to be very successful advertisers. So I’m not about to bite the hand that feeds me. But if every coffee company claims to have the best coffee out there, like they all seem to say in their ads, at least one of them has to be lying, right?

We are told so many lies each day.

“Wear X brand so you’ll be sexy.”

“Buy Y makeup because it will make your skin flawless.”

“Your looks are the best part about you.”

“Your looks are the worst part about you.”

The truth? You are fearfully and wonderfully made just how you are. 

It would be so nice if we could get society to stop lying to us. To stop telling us that our worth is found in outward appearances and things we buy. But that will never happen; we live in a broken world.

But we can’t sit idly by as this happens. We’ve got to take action. It is our responsibility to overcome the lies we are told each day.

I’m asking you to join me, along with Lionhart (a non-profit organization I work with), and The Story Project, to OVERCOME THE LIE.

overcomelie2

Next week, we’ll be teaming up to encourage one another and women all around the globe through inspiring blogs, Facebook posts, and tweets and we want you to join us.

Check out the Facebook event for more information or The Story Project blog.

I’m so excited about the change that is about to happen in so many women’s lives. We, as women, have overcome so much throughout history. Now, it’s time to overcome the lie.